COVID-19/GOVERNANCE

The country is no longer a welfare state and has lost its inherent benevolence

WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY SPECIAL

workers, is scheduled to take place annually. It has not been held in the past five years, says Kaur.

“Consulting labour unions is mandatory as India is a signatory to the Tripartite Consultation International Labour Standards Convention, 1976, which requires the ratifying governments to consult the stakeholders who are employers’ bodies and workers bodies (trade unions),” says K R S Shyam Sundar, labour economist and professor at the Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur (see ‘India is violating ILO convention’,

Clearly, the government has been high-handed in dealing with workers’ rights. On January 8, for instance, when trade unions were protesting the government’s anti-labour polices, Minister of Labour Santosh Gangwar tabled an amendment in the Trade Unions Act, 1926.

After lockdown 4.0, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, on a spree to relax laws for the private sector, announced the codes on wages as a reform, which was passed by Parliament in 2019. The codes are to boost the employer, not the employee. It makes legal representation and access to form trade unions an impos-sible task.

“The government has misused the COVID-19 outbreak as an opportunity to amend labour laws in industry’s favour,” says Aruna Roy, founder member of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan. People are voluntarily staying inside their houses and will not come out on the road to protest. The government’s step is very undemocratic, she adds.